Pushkin is the site of
Catherine's Palace or the Summer Palace, now a fantastic palace/museum.

We arrived with our guide soon after the
palace opened. The lines were already long, but she helped us bypass them,
because she had pre-purchased our tickets.

Tsarina Catherine had seen Versailles and
modeled this room after la Halle aux Glaces.

Almost every room in the castle had one of
these porcelain stoves; many were just for decoration.

What can I say? This is the
reconstructed Amber room.

A close-up--The colored mosaic is also
reconstructed, but all they had to go on were some old black and white photos.

The blue room!

The woman on the right was our guide,
Julia, to whom we were immensely grateful for getting us into the castle and for
a vast amount of knowledge about the castle and the history of Russia and her
excellent English. She was hired through Optima, a guide service we would
highly recommend! We found them through the internet of course.